U-T San Diego reporters Peter Rowe and John Wilkens explore how WWII shaped the “Greatest Generation” and our home. These stories will focus on local men and women who helped preserve our nation and re-create our city. The series is supported by U-T’s video partner, the Media Arts Center San Diego.

Last year, Coronado’s Mike O’Keefe obtained a copy of a letter written by a Marine Corps legend, Lt. Gen. Richard Mangrum. It recounts the summer and fall of 1942 during World War II when Mangrum commanded a dive bomber squadron on Guadalcanal.

Full of harrowing missions, the letter is a dramatic read. But Mike was floored by this matter-of-fact sentence: “You may recall that Art O’Keefe had a run of hard luck.”

Mike recalled nothing of the sort.

His father, Marine Corps Lt. Col. Arthur O’Keefe, kept his wartime experiences to himself. For years, Mike tried to pry the tales loose. Then his father had a stroke. The colonel is 91 now, living in the fog of dementia in an Imperial Beach retirement home.

“His mind is gone,” said Mike, a retired Navy lieutenant commander and a veteran flier.

Until he read the Mangrum letter, written in 1985, Mike had no idea that his father participated in the six-month battle for Guadalcanal, a key campaign that began 70 years ago this month.

Guadalcanal, the Allies’ first major offensive of the Pacific war, is usually seen as a land battle, but fighting was fierce in the waters surrounding the island. Both sides needed constant reinforcement and resupply, and most men and materiel had to be delivered by sea. Arthur O’Keefe was among those sent aloft to bomb the Japanese fleet.

Eager to learn more, Mike and his wife, Jackie, began poring over flight logs, citations, books and unpublished manuscripts last year. They consulted historians and interviewed a wry Midwesterner who, a lifetime ago, flew with O’Keefe.

They haven’t been able to recapture the full tale, not by a long sight. But decades after O’Keefe became one of the first American fliers to land on Guadalcanal, his family has won a glimpse of what he did there — and how much those deeds cost.

Vanishing history

The O’Keefe story is unique, yet this effort to preserve a loved one’s story may resonate with countless Americans. Of the 16 million U.S. men and women who served in the military during World War II, only about 1.5 million are still alive — and they are dying at a rate of one every two minutes, often taking their wartime memories to the grave with them.

There was a sense of urgency about all this in May, during an “Honor Flight” to Washington, D.C. About 100 local World War II veterans took the three-day, all-expenses-paid trip, which featured tours of the various memorials. Many were accompanied by family members who pushed wheelchairs, opened doors, and sometimes heard stories for the first time.

At the Washington Navy Yard’s museum, Gene Arthur came across a photo of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. “The last time I saw that guy,” Arthur told his son, “he was hanging upside down.”

Jim Arthur was stunned. He didn’t know his father had been in Milan in April 1945, when Mussolini’s corpse was strung up — a brutal public display confirming the despot’s demise at the hands of Italian partisans.